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Monday, April 25, 2011

Harry Potter World

This last weekend I went to Florida and some of my dreams came true.... I got to go to Harry Potter World. I love Harry Potter. As soon as I heard there was going to be a Harry Potter World, I wanted to go to it. I made it in less than a year from when it opened. All I can say is... it is AWESOME!!! Smaller than what I thought it was going to be... but still awesome. Although Harry Potter World is pretty small (since it is just a small portion of Universal Studios) Kirsten and I managed to spend a quality 8 hours there. They regulate it because it is still very new and gets very crowded. Before you can enter you have to go get a paper that says you can enter between such and such hours. Once you enter, you can stay as long as you want, but once you leave you can't go back. Knowing this, we wanted to see it during the day and night, so we camped out. We were totally okay with this. Here is how my day at Harry Potter World went...

We arrived by Hogwarts Express... okay, we didn't really... but we should have.

We then went to Hogsmeade.

This is where we went to shop for wands at Ollivanders and visit the Owl Post.

And drink Butterbeer (by the way it is worth going to HP World just for this. It was amazing. We had 2)

We shopped for Candy at HoneyDukes which was right next to the joke shop.

We had lunch at "Three Broomsticks" I had cornish pasties and pumpkin juice. YUM! Oh also... when you went in the bathroom, you hear Moaning Myrtle talking the whole time. ha ha.

We went to Hagrid's House and went on the Flight of the Hippogriff. The ride was kind of like Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at Disneyland... except only 30 seconds long. Seriously. A little disappointing.

We watched the Hogwarts Choir perform (which was awesome... especially with the toads helping) and the competing schools (for the Goblet of Fire) danced.

THEN we went to Hogwarts. This was awesome. So awesome we went twice AND took the castle tour. The ride is half virtual and half reality. It was actually super awesome how they do it. The transition between the two was always smooth. They want to make you feel like you are riding a boom stick on the ride and I feel like they do a really good job at it.

So obviously I loved Harry Potter World. I thought they did a great job paying attention to detail and making it a magical experience. As they should have. I think they could still add more, but what they have now is really awesome. I totally recommend going there if you are a Harry Potter fan. I know this post has been long, but I want to leave you with this. While in line for the ride "Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey" for the second time, there was a cute family from England behind us in line. While starting conversation with the dad of this family I mentioned to him that we should be going to England for Harry Potter World.

British dad: "My son was asking me lots of questions on our way here"
Me: "Ya?"
British dad: *imitating his son... picture how cute this is with a British accent* "Daddy, where is Harry Potter from?" he replies "In England son" "Daddy, where are the Harry Potter movies filmed?" he replies "In England and a couple other places son". "Oh... Daddy, where is Harry Potter World?" he replies "In the United States Son". "Why daddy if everything is supposed to be out of England?" he replies "Well son, the US has more money than we do".
Me: " Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha"

*Maybe you had to be there... or maybe it is more funny with a British accent, but it was pretty funny to hear this dad tell me this conversation that he had with his son.*

I love the butter beer mustaches! Awesome!!! This place looks so fun. I'm no Harry Potter Finatic but I have enjoyed the movies and SOME of the books and I think even I would have a blast! That seems awesome.